Monday, January 20, 2014

People Of India Appears To Be Unhappy With Dharna Politics Of Arvind Kejriwal

Kiran Bedi warns AAP, says people voted the party to power for governance, not for breaking laws-DNA ( Read my views below)

Former IPS officer and social activist Kiran Bedi on Monday condemned Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for sitting on a dharna outside Rail Bhavan, and said the people voted the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for governing the city and not for breaking the laws.

“He (Kejriwal) has remained an agitator, when he should have been an administrator. I think the habit of agitating hasn’t finished in them. They think that a solution to a problem can only be derived by staging a protest,” Bedi told media here today.

“They don’t realize that only because of their agitation, they were voted to power. Now it was time to run the government. The people have voted for governance, not to break laws,” she added.

“Now, a voter will be having second thoughts. He might be thinking that whether he has voted rightly or not. Whether he voted for governance or agitation? Whether he voted for chaos or order in the state?” she said.

“I guess they are waiting for police to take action against so that they can go to the people and can complain about the police. They might force police to dislocate them from their places,” she added.

Earlier in the day, Kejriwal and other AAP leaders were stopped at Rail Bhavan by the Delhi Police while heading for a protest outside Shinde's office demanding action against Delhi Police today.

Party leader Sanjay Singh made it clear yesterday that AAP will stage the protest if no action is taken against the police officers.

AAP is demanding the suspension of the station house officers (SHO) of Sagarpur and Malviya Nagar police stations and two assistant commissioners of police

The dark side of the aam aadmi-Hindu Business Line 21.01.2014

A. SRINIVAS-Business Line

AAP’s response to the attack on African women is deeply disturbing.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Delhi seems to have lost it. Drunk with self-righteousness, it violated all laws and basic decency recently by rounding up and humiliating African women in the middle of the night in south Delhi.

The AAP’s defence is that its volunteers stepped in because the police was doing nothing about an alleged drug and prostitution racket.

Does that entitle them to enter women’s homes without a search warrant and, worse still, at night?

This sort of vigilantism is both disgusting and frightening. What makes matters worse is the shrill defence of the episode, with the chief minister simplistically linking rape to sex and prostitution rackets.

His remarks, besides suggesting the arrogance of a person who is riding a ‘people’s wave’, also betrays a conservative mindset.

Is violence on women merely an offshoot of crime and corruption (that mother of all problems)?

Or is it a problem of patriarchy that is within all of us — in families, in the way we think and act?

Arvind Kejriwal, the Gandhian, should have a thing or two to say about the inner being instead of going along with his Law Minister. Running the government is not about being a pugilist all the time.

But his party is drifting on a cloud of moral righteousness and Kejriwal seems to have forgotten Gandhi for the moment. All we see is a here-and-now, 24x7 zeal, the bizarre search for a clean, pure society (in which Africans can find no place?).

It’s frightening to see these lakhs of AAP volunteers burning with impatience to wipe out ‘corruption’. Corruption becomes a metaphor for dirt, an excuse to externalise the prejudices within us.

Who are these internet-savvy volunteers? If their jottings in Facebook and other websites are anything to go by, they abhor complexity of thought, an engagement with ideas, and particularly, a reference to political history.

“We want to remove corruption now, please do not burden us with your baggage”, is the refrain.

They represent the alarming anti-intellectualism of a section of the middle class, and are, in all likelihood, students or products of engineering and management institutes whose biases have remained intact in the absence of an exposure to liberal streams of thought.

One can only hope that the views of this section do not reflect the core sensibility of the AAP.

Kejriwal’s responses on the issue of the African women as well as on the political rights of Kashmiris betray some sort of connect with this section of the middle class.

Will saner elements in the party be able to alter the tenor of the discourse?

AAP’s enthusiastic volunteers want to see the world slotted into neat categories of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ so that they can actively, if not violently, be part of the solution.

Unable to cope with complexity, they rush to so-called ‘god’men, hyper-personalities such as Kejriwal or Narendra Modi, or, to extend the examples across space and time, the Osama Bin Ladens and even the Charu Mazumdars. They are ‘fundamentalists’.

Insightful views

Salman Akhtar, professor of psychiatry, Jefferson Medical College, has spoken insightfully on the “lure of fundamentalism”.

In his inaugural lecture at the Centre of Psychoanalytic Studies, Delhi University, in May 2005, he observed: “Instead of complexity, fundamentalism offers simplicity, instead of moral ambiguity, fundamentalism offers moral clarity… Instead of cultural impurity and hybridisation, fundamentalism offers purity.”

He went on to say: “Fundamentalism lulls us into a sleep of childhood, a sleep of simplicity but it is worse than childhood because a child is always questioning and attempting to come out of its innocence bit by bit.”

The extent of AAP’s ‘innocence’ is disconcerting.

The experienced elements in the party must strive towards moderation.

One way of jettisoning the muck in the flood of new members (to borrow a metaphor used by AAP leader Yogendra Yadav in a recent interview) is to take clear social and political positions.

‘Corruption’ (the slogan, not the issue) should take a backseat in the party’s lexicon in favour of a more enlightened view of social change.

NEW DELHI: Attacking Aam Aadmi Party's agitation, led by CM Arvind Kejriwal, BJP on Monday said it was "anarchic and a gimmick". It asked the new outfit to give up its "mock fight" with its ally, Congress, and take up the issue of Delhi government's lack of jurisdiction over police with the Centre instead. The leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley, asked: "Did the AAP form a government to wreck the system from within?"

"The situation we have seen today on the streets of Delhi is anarchic. This is a mock fight between AAP and its ally, Congress. Such an agitation, taking place near Rajpath where the Republic Day rehearsals are on, affects the aam aadmi and both parties are responsible for it," said BJP spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman.

Admitting that the issues flagged by AAP were important, BJP said the manner in which it had gone about highlighting them was not acceptable. Slamming the "confrontationist route" adopted by AAP, Sitharaman said: "This government is like a fish out of water in the Delhi secretariat and is hence out on the streets reliving its activist days rather than running the administration."

Delhi BJP accused AAP of "staging a political drama to deflect attention from the real issues on which it had failed to deliver". It condemned the AAP-led government for causing hardship to thousands of Delhiites by blocked central Delhi, which led to closure of four Metro stations. "Governance cannot be done from roads. The sanctity of the process is being violated for petty political mileage," said party president Vijay Goel.

Harsh Vardhan, leader of the opposition in Delhi assembly, said instead of sitting on a dharna, Kejriwal should focus on governance. "In less than 22 days, this government has started troubling the common man living in Delhi. We all saw how the law minister behaved with foreign women. By staging a protest, they have proved they have no faith in Constitution and law," said Vardhan.

"They have failed to deliver in areas under them like power, water, JJ clusters and illegal colonies, education and transport. They have dumped 'Janta durbars'. When their anti-corruption helpline flopped, they blamed the anti-corruption branch," declared Goel.

99% of people of India are unhappy and annoyed with the behavior,
attitude and action of police force in India.If you are true and honest and if
for any problem you try to get rescue from police you will be tortured by
police. If on the other hand if a criminal has to get rid of legal action, he
may approach police to make the case weak or to get the complaint (FIR )
closed. You go to any corner of the
country and you will fail to lodge your complain, and if lodged somehow or the other,
there will not be any action against criminals. Innocent fear approaching
police but criminal freely approach and get their work done. This is the culture
prevalent in police force in general. There may be some exception to this conclusion,
but the image of police is not at all good.

When Arvind Kejriwal says entire police force is corrupt and
purely supporters of criminals and evil doers, media men or many politicians of
old mindset may blame Kejriwal for his generalization. But during last six
decades of rule and of freedom < Indian rulers could not bring about desired
reformation in police system. Politicians preach sermons put golden words in
their manifestos and promise to make police people friendly but did nothing to
really reform police and I can say more vehemently that they are not at all
interested to do so. It is only Kejriwal and his supporters who have taken
Himalayan task of reforming police behavior and working style as challenge and
I am confident that if they are allowed to remain in government , they will do
so successfully sooner or the later. Their intention and their purpose is
undoubtedly good and people friendly.

Ways and means to bring about change in police system
suffering from deep cancer and infected with dangerous virus may be different
for different politicians and rulers. But one thing is clear and beyond doubt
that corruption of police cannot be reduced by gang of looters, flatterers,
thieves, corrupt, and selfish rulers sitting in central government. It is the
culture of Congress Party to put carpet on all exposure of all types of crimes
by instituting a committee constituted by mostly same type of criminals and corrupt
officials or corrupt politicians. Political parties which use to win the election
by dirty politics of quota or secularism or lollipop distribution on the eve of
election or by distributing subsidy or by loan waiver cannot dream of making
police honest and people friendly.

People of India are now ready to face all consequences and
ready to agitate to reform police. Media men and leaders of congress party who
are advocating rule of law or who are accusing Kejriwal of being anarchist will
understand the real mood of people of India only by losing their entire vote
share and entire sympathy from common men. Leaders of Congress Party understood
the value of Jan Lokpal only when it was washed away in last state assembly elections.
Similarly they will understand the anger of people of India against police
action only when it will be washed fully in forthcoming Parliamentary election.

I hope , rulers sitting in central government without losing
time call AAP leaders, police officials and all concerned on talking table and
immediately resolve the issue. Otherwise the situation may go beyond control
and thing may take a ugly turn. India is a democratic country where
recalcitrant behavior of rulers can be fought only by strike, agitation, dharna,
arsoning , vandalism and gherao like destructive tactices. Political discourse
as hitherto prevailed in politics of tradition parties to handle mass agitation
and public demand will have to change and political leaders of congress party
will have to learn to listen even when there is no agitation and no strike and
no gherao and no demonstration. Agitation may be for wage revision or for change is system or for action against corrupt officials or for change in entire system, government does not understand the language other than that of strike, violence, vandalism etc. Government remains silent spectator of all atrocities on common men or on all demands raised by common men or service men or business men groups until there is mass unrest.

Present position is such that, you may write hundreds of
letters to an office for redressal of your grievance, but there is none to read
these letters. People of India may write thousands and lac of letters to top of
offices and departments , to Government of India, to ministers, to President of
India and any office bearer but there will no action until there is mass
agitation on road..You may come out with peaceful procession to expose various
scam or corruption or inefficiency and deficiency of any department, but none
in the government will ever think of taking any corrective action until there
is mass agitation on road. This is perhaps the reason why Mr.Kejriwal has to
take recourse of Dharna to bring about desired change in police behavior . I
salute and congratulate him and his party who have taken this bold step to
correct the cancerous police system.

Mahatma Gandhi fought a long battle against misrule of
British government and then won the freedom. Similarly it is only Kejriwal who
is Chief Minister who is constrained and forced to adopt Dharna like step to
change the dirty politics of ruling congress party. People of India will
support Kejriwal and his party to eliminate corrupt practices from the system
and to change the mindset of tradition politicians of this country who failed
to give India a clean administration which is conducive for growth of honest culture.

Lastly I appeal Mr. Manmohan Singh and his government to
bring Kejriwal and his government on discussion table along with police
officials to resolve the stalemate without any delay.

If majority of mangoes in a basket are rotten, none will
like to buy that basket only because one or two mangoes are still good in the basket.
Similarly there may be good officers in police system or any administrative
system too, but the overall image is not good for any police station or any
government office .

Let us work and make our...Government- Proactive,Media- Reactive,Political Parties- Elective,Voters- Selective,Crowds- Preventive,Religions- Constructive,